Darryl Hicks Jr., left, and Tung Ming at their arraignment May 11, 2017 in Torrance court . Each is charged with gross vehicular manslaughter for the March 7 crash that killed Jesse Esphorst Jr., the 16-year-old shortstop for South High School. Torrance Superior Court. Photo by Brad Graverson/The Daily Breeze/SCNG/05-11-17

Rejecting a defense argument that “not every bad judgment, not every bad accident is a crime,” a judge Tuesday ordered two men to stand trial on gross vehicular manslaughter charges for killing a 16-year-old star South Bay athlete in a horrific three-vehicle crash in Torrance.

Jesse Esphorst Jr. helped his team during an April 13, 2016 game. Photo By Robert Casillas / Daily Breeze

“They must have been traveling at incredible speed,” Guzman said, looking at photographs of the March 7 crash on Crenshaw Boulevard at Crest Road that killed South High School shortstop Jesse Esphorst Jr. and seriously injured his 48-year-old father, also Jesse.

Family sheds tears

Jesse, who had the talent to play in college or beyond, died just hours after hitting a home run to lead his team to victory.

Esphorst family members wiped tears and cried as some of the first people to arrive at the crash scene that night described for Deputy District Attorney Ryan Gould what happened moments before the crash, and the ensuing carnage that resulted.

Meredith Matsuo said she was driving home south on Crenshaw when she heard the roar of someone accelerating up ahead and then crashing into a minivan to her left. She could see the two passengers — later identified as father and son — tossed about inside the van, swaying from side to side as the van spun toward her. A door appeared to swing open and a body believed to be Jesse tumbled out.

“I was shaking,” Matsuo said. “There were sparks. It was something I had never seen before. … I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I couldn’t believe they were moving like that.”

Passed at high speed

Another witness, Trameka Richardson, said she was riding in a car north on Crenshaw Boulevard toward Palos Verdes Drive North when two cars suddenly passed to her right at high speed.

“It caused our car to swerve,” Richardson said. “They came from behind. … They were going 80 to 100 mph.”

According to police testimony, Ming admitted to chasing Hicks along Crenshaw Boulevard at 80 mph after Hicks hit his car near Silver Spur Road and took off. Ming was on the phone with a Sheriff’s Department 911 operator who encouraged him to get the license plate number. Hicks’ Audi struck the Esphorsts’ minivan first, followed by Ming’s Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle, just as the dispatcher told him to stop chasing as soon as he saw the plate.

Witness Maya Perez, who had seen the two cars in her rear-view mirror approaching behind her very fast, said the light at Crest Road was green for her, but she slowed and stopped because she feared something was about to happen with the speeding cars.

“I could just see them flying down the hill,” she said. “I could see the car coming behind me. I thought, ‘Oh my God, they are going to kill somebody.’ ”

The light had changed to red when the Audi and Mercedes-Benz raced through the intersection and smashed into the Esphorst van.

Asked to pray

“I thought they were going to flip and the van was spinning,” she recalled. “I ran to the white van. I could see something hanging on the window. Then I realized it was a person.”

Richardson said she pulled up to the crash and saw Perez standing in the street. The two had just left choir practice in Rancho Palos Verdes.

“She took me to the car and told me to pray for them,” Richardson said.

Each of the witnesses said Jesse Esphorst appeared to land on his son, whose body was slumped against the door, partially hanging out. Both were unconscious.

The father survived, but his son did not. More than 2,000 people, including hundreds from the South Bay high school and Little League baseball community, attended his funeral at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Ming stayed at the scene, but Hicks’ car was located a quarter-mile away on Pacific Coast Highway. He was gone, but arrested days later.

Question of seat belts

Defense attorneys Richard Hutton and Daniel Perlman raised questions about whether the Esphorsts were wearing seat belts because of the positions of their bodies in the van. Four witnesses, including Torrance police Traffic Investigator Joseph Gietzen, said they did not believe Jesse was wearing a seat belt.

Arguing the case should be dismissed, or at the least gross vehicular manslaughter charges dismissed, Hutton told the judge that Ming displayed bad judgment, but was a victim of Hicks. His decision to chase Hicks while encouraged by a 911 dispatcher amounted to a mistake, not a crime, Hutton said.

Guzman did not agree, saying the dispatcher’s request to get the license plate number was not “blanket permission to go about it in any manner he sees fit.”

In addition to felony counts of vehicular manslaughter, both men face a felony count of reckless driving on a highway causing injuries and death. Hicks also faces counts of hit-and-run driving resulting in death or serious injury to another person, and hit-and-run driving resulting in injury to another person. Besides those felonies, he faces misdemeanor counts of hit-and-run driving resulting in property damage and driving when the privilege was suspended or revoked.

Larry Altman has covered crime and court proceedings in Southern California since 1987. A graduate of Cal State Northridge, where he served as editor of the college newspaper, Altman has worked for the Daily Breeze since 1990. The Society of Professional Journalists named him a "Distinguished Journalist" in Los Angeles in 2006. Altman's work was featured twice on CBS' “48 Hours” and he appeared eight times with “Nancy Grace," who called him "dear." He has covered hundreds of homicides and many trials. Altman has crawled through a mausoleum to open a coffin, confronted husbands who killed their wives, wives who killed their husbands, and his coverage helped put a child molester and a murderer in prison. In his spare time, Altman is an avid Los Angeles Lakers and Dodgers fan, is the commissioner of a Fantasy Baseball league with several other current and former newspapermen, runs a real estate empire and likes to watch old movies on TCM.

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